News

MELBOURNE, THURSDAY 10 MAY 2018: The CRCSI welcomes the announcement the Australian Government will provide Digital Earth Australia (DEA) with $36.9 million over three years from 2019-20 and $12.8 million ongoing.

Digital Earth Australia (DEA) is a key piece of public data infrastructure that provides Australia with an analysis platform for satellite imagery. DEA will offer Australian private industry access to stable, standardised data from which it can innovate to produce new products and services to enhance their business and be competitive in global markets.

“Digital Earth Australia is a game changer,” Kernich says. “Over the last 10 years, the CRCSI has worked closely with Geoscience Australia (GA), and other partners, to develop innovative software and techniques, and new standards in open source data and software.

“We led the first investments in the research that spawned DEA and we are proud that GA has now taken our research and developed it into a world-leading capability,” he says.

“Ongoing funding from the Australian Government ensures that this key piece of public data infrastructure will provide Australians, from all sectors, with a simple, continent-wide analysis platform for satellite imagery,” Kernich explains.

“Whether you’re a farmer assessing crop or pasture health, or a climate scientist interested in coastal erosion, DEA provides you with free access to thirty years of satellite imagery of the Australian continent.

“The CRCSI is currently helping GA define how they can encourage industry to use DEA to drive business growth, as well as how to build new products and services.

“Outcomes based on our initial industry consultation have shown the biggest industries likely to benefit from using DEA are agriculture, environmental monitoring, mining, cities, emergency services, banking and insurance, and state and local governments,” Kernich says.

DEA is the Australian Government’s implementation of the open source Open Data Cube Initiative (ODC), which around 40 countries are looking to operate.

“We are also working with GA on improving the ODC, a world-class open source digital infrastructure underpinning DEA. This will make the data platform easy to deploy to new countries and businesses anywhere in the world,” Kernich says.

“Our involvement with ODC is helping to coordinate and grow a global open source community to assist users across the world explore how they can use the ODC.”